This was originally sketched to be part of an email to a couple friends I trade emails with periodically on sports topics. I had originally planned to include the below section, but I chose to omit it as my email was getting really long as it was, plus what I had hoped to share from the below was still in its half-baked stage when I was running out of writing juice for the email. So I nixed it and moved it here, to allow the email I had otherwise written to be submitted within a reasonable timeframe.
I grew up believing that the Cubs were a cursed sports franchise. And I do think they were for a long time. But, curses can be broken (and have been broken), and new curses can occur on teams that may previously not have been cursed. For a Biblical context:
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21, NKJV
6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. James 3:6-10, NKJV
My point is that words have power, even when a person might not realize or think so. For the Cubs, I think they had two curses occurring simultaneously: Reason #1, which the world knows, is because of William Sianis cursing the franchise in 1945 when they kicked him and his goat out of a World Series game, even though he had paid for his ticket. He said that they would never be in a World Series again (or win a World Series, depending on whose account you believe). He did recant not long before his death, but the team didn't appear in a World Series again until 2016. Reason #2, which may not be as well-known, but the Cubs and Red Sox, both of whom participated in the 1918 World Series, it is said that both teams were trying to throw (i.e. lose) the World Series, but that the Cubs managed to be more successful at it (meaning they lost the World Series, and the Red Sox won). What is significant for both teams is that the Red Sox never won another World Series again until 2004, and neither did the Cubs until 2016, but, Boston continued winning pennants every so often all the while, and the Cubs kept winning pennants once every few years on average until 1945, when they then experienced their pennant drought.
Now that I think about it, one of the fallouts of the 1919 White Sox's World Series scandal (in addition to several of their players were banned from baseball for life) was a similar drought to that of the Cubs over the next 80-plus years: no World Series titles until 2005, and only one appearance in between, with the 1959 team having captured the American League pennant before losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the championship round. Even though they haven't been back to the World Series since 2005, I don't necessarily think they're cursed; they have had a bad run of leadership and decision-making that has sabotaged a few chances along the way, but nothing freakish has happened to lead people to think that their team is cursed.
The Cubs are currently enjoying a resurgent season, and there's something about the joy of just watching them play, and win. As frustrating as the seasons after their 2016 title were, culminating in the dissolution of the championship core in 2021, something did finally fundamentally shift. This team is no longer cursed, and most definitely no longer cursed with the curses that they brought upon themselves in the early-to-mid 20th-century. Time will tell where they finish at the end of this year (and the playoffs), but I'm just grateful to see the Cubs making the type of winning plays that once seemed to elude them (and all-too-easy for several of their rivals to do, including at their expense). I hope and pray that this doesn't change for a long time, even if they don't experience ultimate championship success as much as I would like for them to experience.